Above: A Homeless Man Living in the Sewers of Vienna, Austria-Hungary, 1900

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Isaiah 1:10-17 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):

Hear the word of the LORD,

You chieftains of Sodom;

Give ear to our God’s instruction,

You folk of Gomorrah!

What need have I of all your sacrifices?

Says the LORD.

I am sated with burnt offerings of rams,

And suet of fatlings,

And blood of bulls;

And I have no delight

In lambs and he-goats.

That you come to appear before Me–

Who asked that of you?

Trample my courts no more;

Bringing oblations is futile,

Incense is offensive to Me.

New moon and sabbath,

Proclaiming of solemnities,

Assemblies with iniquity,

I cannot abide.

Your new moons and fixed seasons

Fill Me with loathing;

They are become a burden to Me,

I cannot endure them.

And when you lift up your hands,

I will turn My eyes away from you;

Though you pray at length,

I will not listen.

Your hands are stained with crime–

Wash yourselves clean;

Put your evil doings

Away from My sight.

Cease to do evil;

Learn to do good.

Devote yourselves to justice;

Aid the wronged.

Uphold the rights of the orphan;

Defend the cause of the widow.

Psalm 50:7-15 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak:

“O Israel, I will bear witness against you;

for I am God, your God.

8 I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices;

your offerings are always before me.

9 I will take no bull-calf from your stalls,

nor he goats out of your pens;

10 For all the beasts of the forest are mine,

the herds in their thousands upon the hills.

11 I know every bird in the sky,

and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.

12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the whole world is mine and all that is in it.

13 Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving

and make good your vows to the Most High.

15 Call upon me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall honor me.

Matthew 10:34-11:1 (An American Translation):

[Jesus continued,]

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be in his own household. No one who loves father or mother more than me is worthy of me, and no one who will not take up his cross and follow me is worthy of me. Whoever gains his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for mysake will gain it.

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes him who has sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will have the same reward as a prophet, and whoever welcomes an upright man because he is upright will have the same reward as an upright man. And no one who will give the humblest of my disciples even a cup of cold water because he is my disciple, I tell you, can never fail of his reward.

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The Collect:

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Bible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures, spends much time on the topic of economic justice. It devotes more attention to this than to various sexuality-related issues, yet one (especially in North America, my context) is more likely to hear a hellfire-and-damnation sermon against pre-marital sex, adultery, or homosexuality than against the exploitation of the poor in politics, economics, courts, jails, and prisons. My theory of why this is true is simple: It is easier and more comfortable to condemn the physical offenses–real or merely perceived–of others, and therefore to seem righteous, than to confront societal sins in which one might be complicit.

We read in Isaiah 1 that conducting seemingly pious rituals while not confronting the denial of justice to widows and orphans, among the most vulnerable members of Isaiah’s society, does not satisfy God. Twice–once in the excerpt I typed out–the chapter specifies maltreatment of widows and orphans as the grave offense du chapitre. God cares deeply about how people treat each other, notably the poor and other vulnerable persons.

Matthew 10:34-41 gives us further advice on how to relate to each other. Christianity and the message of Jesus have divided families for nearly 2,000 years. When that happens to one, Jesus says, remember to love him more than one’s family. Family still matters, of course, but certainly one should remain more loyal to Jesus than to one who disowns or turns a believer over to authorities. Such rejection by one’s relatives is unfortunate, but there is a spiritual family, some members of which belong to the Church Militant and others to the Church Triumphant. Many of them have faced similar hardships and heartaches.

The unifying message binding these two passages is that we must love God most of all, and that how we treat others reveals whether or not we do this. Those rulers who “are rogues and cronies and thieves” and who are “greedy for gifts” and “do not judge the case of the orphan” or hear “the widow’s cause (Isaiah 1:23, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures) do not love God most of all. And those fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters who turn against their family members because of the other’s conversion to Christianity do not love God most of all either.